Dodge Charger owner sues mechanic for delivering unrestored car

Fourteen years after P&J Empire Auto Inc. picked up John Moynihan’s 1969 Dodge Charger for restoration, Moynihan is suing the mechanic for allegedly returning a car with most of its parts missing.

Moynihan, of Verplanck, accused P&J in New Windsor and its owner, John Macioce, of negligence and unjust enrichment, in a complaint filed Feb. 16 in Westchester Supreme Court.

The Charger was delivered “for the particular purpose of having the Dodge restored,” with the understanding that Macioce and P&J would keep it until the job was done and then return it, the complaint states. “Defendants failed to fulfill their particular purpose.”

Macioce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

P&J picked up the car in April 2009, according to the complaint, and Moynihan has paid $13,600 in cash and given P&J his 1970 Dodge Swinger 340 as a partial payment.

Then in October 2020 —  more than 11 years after the car was delivered — Macioce allegedly told Moynihan that most of the parts were at other locations and could not be located.

In December 2020, the Charger was returned, according to the complaint, unrestored, no longer in its original condition, and without most of its parts.

Now, 14 years after the deal was struck, Moynihan says Macioce and P&J have failed to compensate him for the missing parts.

The complaint does not explain why Moynihan waited so long for the car to be restored or returned. Nor does it say how valuable the car was or could have been.

The 1969 Dodge Charger was offered with a variety of engine options, transmissions and other features. The fast Dodge Charger R/T 440, for instance, sold for about $3,600 in 1969. Today it could fetch anywhere from $18,100 on the low end to $74,100 at the high end, according to J.D. Power.

Last year, Mecum Auctions sold a high-performance Charger for $165,000.

Perhaps the most popular versions are replicas of  The General Lee, the customized stock car used by Bo and Luke Duke in The Dukes of Hazzard TV comedy from 1979 to 1985. The former bootlegger brothers raced around fictional Hazzard County, Georgia, often crashing the General as they evaded corrupt county commissioner Boss Hogg.

The amount of damages demanded by Moynihan suggests that his Charger was no General Lee. He is demanding $15,000 plus interest and unspecified punitive damages.

Moynihan is represented by Peekskill attorney Adam L. Birbrower.